It's self-reinforcing though. If you invest the time to learn, then you may find yourself (i a beafutiful house :)) using it a lot more than two times a week.
Re:FFmpeg by Example
by nuancebydefault on Wednesday January 15, 2025 @04:09AM
(#42708920)
I think this way of thinking is an uphill battle.
My kid uses wifi, google classroom tools, youtube, games,... I can tell him if only you knew command.com, ipconfig, doom.wad formats, lateg,... you could be so much more proficient. I already know this will never happen, just like I never learned x86 assembly.
The same goes for tools like LLMs, once you are used to them, your knowledge shifts.
I learned a bit of assembly and it was a god send to understand linkers and how FFI works. Also make it easier to have a good model on using a debugger. Not that useful on a tactical level, but really great when faced with some errors in your compiled programs.
They're both tools where if they're part of your daily workflow you'll get immense value out of learning them thoroughly. If instead you need a regex once or twice a week, the benefit is not greater than the cost of learning to do it myself. I have a hundred other equally complicated things to learn and remember, half the job of the computer is to know things I can't put in my brain. If it can do the regex for me, I suddenly get 70% of the value at no cost.
Regex is not a tool I need often enough to justify the hours and brain space. But it is still an indespensible tool. So when I need a regex, I either ask a human wizard I know, or now I ask my computer directly.